UP govt terrorising Muslims on pretext of conducting madrassa survey: Mayawati

Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Friday accused the Yogi Adityanath government of interfering in the running of private madrassas in the state on the pretext of conducting surveys and terrorising the Muslims.

“The complaints of the Muslim community being exploited, neglected and being affected by riots have been common since the time of the Congress, and now they are being oppressed and terrorised by the BJP who came to power by doing narrow politics in the name of appeasement. This is sad and condemnable,” read a tweet by the country’s tallest Dalit leader.

Mayawati went on to say: “The BJP government has an evil intent on madrassas in Uttar Pradesh. The attempts to interfere in the private madrassas, which run on donations by the community, in the name of survey is inappropriate. They should focus on improving the condition of the government and government-aided madrassas.”

The BJP government in the state recently announced that a survey of “unrecognised” madrassas would be conducted in the state to gather information about the number of teachers, curriculum and basic facilities available there.

Criticising the move, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, India’s prominent Muslim socio-religious group, had recently said the move to conduct a survey of madrassas in the state is a “malicious attempt” to disparage the education system.

Prominent Muslim leader and AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi MP accused the BJP regime in Uttar Pradesh of “harassing Muslims” and said that as per Article 30, madrasas come under the ambit of the UP Madarsa Board.

“It’s not a survey, but a mini-NRC. Some madrasas are under the UP madrassa board. The government cannot interfere with our rights under Article 30. They just want to harass Muslims,” the AIMIM chief was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.